We've reported here about the huge surge in Toyota Prius sales over the last few months. In contrast, the number crunchers over at JD Power report that U.S. consumer interest in hybrid-powered automobiles has begun to fade. According to their second annual Alternative Powertrain Study, half of all new-vehicle shoppers polled (4k) are considering a hybrid. That's down from 57 percent of shoppers polled in their 2006 survey. Mike Marshall, director of JD's automotive emerging technologies unit, attributes the drop to the discrepency between inflated expectations and reality: "In the 2006 study, we found consumers often overestimated the fuel efficiency of hybrid-electric vehicles, and the decrease in consideration of hybrids in 2007 may be a result of their more realistic understanding of the actual fuel economy capabilities." In other words, the new EPA fuel economy calculations have hit hybrids hard.
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What also may hit the Prius hard is reliability.
Last week a business associate had her Prius die on the way to Chicago from Pittsburgh…apparently a computer module has to be replaced…she will be without her car for 1-2 weeks. This is the third such “dying” occurence I have heard of with the Prius. While my experience may be highly anecdotal,I find it odd that I would know 3 people with this Prius problem. RF—have you heard / read anything on this issue with the Prius—is it widespread?
I have heard it form co-workers as well. The other problem I have heard of from co-workers (there are 15 prius owners at my company) have been mileage complaints and 2 battery failures.
Carlismo: +1 on that.
New EPA fuel economy calculations don’t go into effect until 2008 model year, do they? Is the average consumer already doing the new math?
Perhaps there should be a separate RSS feed for the news bits and for the feature article “meat” of the site.
Maybe potential consumers just bought calculators and figured out that they could get a Fit or similar non-hybrid for a few thousand less and that the difference in price would be greater than the negligible increase in MPG. Either that or they realized that the Prius is butt-ugly and now that there are thousands of them on the street, the novelty factor has worn off.
To me anything that uses specialized technology in the sense that if there is a issue one depends on a single service provider is a no starter.
I’m going to run my cars until they die, but I’m not getting a hybrid unless it runs in EV mode (and Hybrid SUVs don’t count). Until then, I’d be more likely to look at inexpensive cars like the Yaris.
I think another part of the issue is that a few years ago, it sounded like there would be a hybrid version of EVERYTHING. So a lot of shoppers figured they’d consider a hybrid version of their vehicle of choice. That hasn’t materialized, and no hybrid besides the Prius has really made its way into the mainstream and daily conversation.
Hybrids were also hurt by the EPA’s unrealistic (and outgoing) test. Don’t forget, manufacturers are required by law to use EPA estimates in advertising, so they couldn’t help but advertise 61mpg even if they knew it’d cause problems down the road. (On the other hand, no one’s really noticed that 30mpg conventional cars are going to be a whole lot harder to find from now on.)
Better than Japan though, where the Prius tests at 80-something mpg. (That’s where rumors of the next-gen Prius getting 90+ mpg came from – a reasonable 10-15% increase.)
I know some Prius owners, and I’ve never heard of this problem, although one had their battery spontaneously drain itself dead while sitting in the garage.
My mother-in-law has 2 Prii which seem to average about 45 mpg in mostly city/suburban driving. She doesn’t seem disappointed with the mileage, even though my 5 yr-old Civic can get slightly over 40 mpg on the highway under truly ideal circumstances (no A/C, cruise control at 73mph, no major hills, etc.)
If I had to buy a new $30,000 car with exceptionally good fuel efficiency I’d probably end up with a Mini Convertible (after the 2008 engine upgrade).
JD Power reports seem miss critical information. In this case the phrase “expectation of receiving an improvement of 18.5 miles per gallon” is meaningless because we don’t know the base vehicle that was compared. 18.5 MPG improvement can certainly be possible for a small car in city driving–that’s not unreasonable. 18.5 MPG improvement on an F350 pickup, however, is unreasonable.
Personally, I am far more interested in an electric car that occasionally runs on an internal combustion engine (a la the promised Chevrolet Volt) than a internal combustion engined car (a la Toyota Prius) that occasionally runs on electric power.
I just don’t see the savings in gasoline consumption in a car like the Prius, that is, compared to small gasoline-powered car. And it is absolutely no contest between a Prius and a diesel-powered small car – the diesel will win.
I can understand the allure of the Prius to it’s owners, but so far I’ve been immune to it’s stated charms. Give me a diesel, give me an EV with a supplemental gas/diesel engine, and from my point of view, I’m way ahead regarding fuel consumption (and probably driving enjoyment as well).
B Moore – Autosavant.net
I test drove the Prius and it might makes sense for someone who drives mostly on city streets and leases a new car every couple years. But for those of us who buy a car and drive it well into six digits the total cost of ownership is higher, regardless of the gas mileage reported. As for mileage, my TDI averages 40 mpg in mixed driving and I’ve gotten as high as 47+ on the road while carrying passengers and a trunk full of luggage – I have friends who do even better but I have a heavy foot and an automatic transmission.
I like the idea of hybrids, but what I’ve seen to date hasn’t justified the extra nickel. I just wish we had more choices for diesel vehicles. VW and Mercedes do a fine job, but the other manufacturers don’t even try in the US market, except on heavy duty trucks.
I dunno, 57% vs. 50% doesn’t seem like that big a drop to me.
I’d say follow the money, and Prius sales YTD are up spectacularly compared to last year (something like 95%). And there’s now a Camry Hybrid, which itself is selling pretty well.
As I recall from Consumer Reports’ reliability surveys, the Prius has one of the best records out there (I know, I know, TrueDelta says CR’s methodology isn’t the best).
But TTAC readers don’t have the same mentality as the GM fanboys over in Edmunds that CR is totally biased against the home team? Right?
FWIW, my son’s Prius has been fine in the year since he bought it, and its been averaging over 50 mpg in that toughest of urban environments, NYC. (He doesn’t use it for commuting into Manhattan, however.)
When you consider that hybrid sales currently comprise just a small fraction of total new vehicle sales, a drop in the expressed level of interest from 57% to 50% isn’t all that meaningful. In either circumstance, most people who claim to express interest in hybrids don’t act on it, for whatever reason.
I suspect that the lack of available choices (particularly as buyers may perceive Toyota as the only company that can be trusted in this arena), the reluctance to lay down hard cash on still-experimental technology and possibly statistical error in the survey data — I’m assuming that the margin of error on a survey of that sample size is perhaps 2-3% — could explain the difference.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if there is also a lot of data noise in this particularly survey. Respondents might just lie on the survey, pretending to be considering a hybrid because they want to appear to be “green” to the surveyor. If one-half of a group of people claim to want X, but then only 1% of them eventually go and get X, that’s a possible indication that many of them might have just been lying in the first place. It’s difficult to otherwise explain the lack of follow through.
I have had a Prius for 3 years. Mileage varies with the season and driving conditions but it averages out at pretty close to 50mpg. Contrary to some reports my experience is that mileage is even better on the open road than in the city.
Only the really little diesels (with mt) get mileage close to a Prius and not if you do much stop/start city commuting.
I wouldn’t mind a diesel but my wife won’t drive mt and the Prius is our family car. It is often compared with the Corolla for size, but its bigger than that. It feels sizeable and safe to ride in (compared with, say, a Honda Fit) A similar sized diesel in auto would be left behind in the fuel economy stakes.
Then there’s the reliability issue – but I’ve never had any problems with our car. It’s not a sporty handler but its a family workhorse and in the corners my kids start squealing long before the tyres do.
Looks are totally subjective. I think it’s better than okay – but anyone who thinks that the Prius is butt ugly shouldn’t buy it (that’s for sure).
I can’t think of another car available that would do the job for my family with comparable fuel efficiency. So it works for us – but I’m not into thinking that I’m saving the planet by driving a Prius. If you think that that’s what people who drive a Prius think, then I can see how that might – make you unhappy.
http://www.automobilemag.com/features/0707_diesel_feature/index.html
I read this and found it interesting. It would seem they have made up their mind on the Hybrid/Diesel question. It helps that I agree, but it’s nice to see I’m not the only one who thinks hybrids aren’t the answer yet. Somebody get to work on a hydrogen system please. Or a warp drive or something.
ghillie, my experience mirrors yours. I didn’t write anything yesterday because I would have had my comments deleted – I waited to cool down. The initial comments here seem to be all anti-hybrid and anti-Toyota, without any real substance of proof behind assertions of failures.
Let me put it this way – if there were major failures going on in a large portion (or even a small portion) of Prius cars, wouldn’t any reasonable person believe that GM, Ford and Chrysler would be ensuring that the lamestream mass (hysteria) media would be shouting it at the rooftops?!
The fact is – the Prius is among the most reliable of Toyota cars and that is saying something worth repeating.
My car has over 45,000 miles in two years and nada, zip, zero, problems with hybrid drive and only one frayed wire (fixed under warrantee) which caused the self levelling headlamps to go to limp-home (high) mode (which in fact, helped me see a deer and slam on the brakes in the dusk).
Also the technology which allowed the computer(s) to realize that I was making a panic-stop when a young male teen walked across the road in front of me with a wheelbarrow, saved his life and possibly even mine or my wife’s.
I can’t help thinking that not many mid-sized automatic diesel cars (like a Passat) could get the 56.8 mpg we recently got with our Prius on a trip, with 3 people and a car full of luggage. Admittedly, to be fair, the temps were in the 50’s (it was April in the UP of Michigan) thus the a/c was not needed, the roads were “mostly” 55 mph, the snow tires were off, and traffic was not awful. About 800 miles, over 56.5 mpg. Real world. This exceeds the 2005 and current highway mileage rating from the EPA of 50 mpg, by the way.
I’m happy that diesel cars get great mileage and I’m not carrying a torch for hybrids – but there really is a lot of bs out there on this topic.
The linked article by murphysamber had this often repeated chestnut:
“Hybrid systems offer almost no benefit on the highway, so unless you’re sitting in traffic, you’re not saving anything.”
My experience and that of Glenn 126 shows that this claim is not true. There are several reasons why hybrids get good fuel efficiency on the open road. One of them is that the hybrid system allows the gas engine to be smaller, lighter, low friction and use a more efficient “cycle” (Atkinson cycle I think is what the Prius uses).
It is also plain from the linked article that modern diesels are not a “low-tech” alternative to hybrids. The cost of battery replacement is an issue for hybrids, but the cost of engine maintenance and repair (including all the high-tech add on bits for emissions control) of modern diesels seems to me to be likely to remove any cost advantage they might have had.
I believe there is a distinct bias against hybrids in general and Toyota in particular. There are probably varied reasons for this. But it doesn’t bother me.
Here’s an example of that anti-Prius bias, written about a month ago by someone I’ll choose not to “dignify” (if that’s even the correct word) by providing his name:
“The millionth Prius was sold last week. A cross between a Mazda and a miscarriage – IT’S embraced by celebrities, environmentalists, and the nexus of evil: the celebrity environmentalist. Leonardo DiCaprio helms a hybrid hackeysack, allowing his conscience to remain clear while [having sex with] truckloads of broads who may or may not have been born before the Lillith [sic] Fair.”
The Toyota Prius has been vilified like this since the second generation model, introduced in the US as a 2004 model, was met with great success in the marketplace. It seems right-wingers and domestic flag wavers like to emphasize Toyota’s seeming “hypocrisy” in producing such a fuel-sipping car and projecting a “green” image while at the same time building a new assembly plant in Texas to crank out huge Tundra pickup trucks. Would they say the same thing if General Motors, for example, had produced such a car while simultaneously selling Silverados, Suburbans, and Hummers?
But the reality is that Toyota took a huge gamble on this car. It has paid off handsomely, especially in light of the recent spikes in gas prices. The car is simply the most fuel efficient vehicle sold in America, with EPA city/highway estimates of 48/45 mpg, under the “new” testing regimen for 2008 models.
The naysayers also liked to point out that the supposed extra initial cost of the Prius would take many years to recoup in fuel savings. This of course assumes that buyers would get a base model Corolla for thousands less and the price of gas would somehow drop back to 2 bucks a gallon or so. Yet the Prius compares favorably with the larger Camry in terms of passenger and cargo space (except for the center rear seat).
Part of the anti hybrid bias is simply the latest “not invented here syndrome” bias which has exemplified the former big 3’s arrogance fo 30 years. I look forward to having more hybrid choices in the coming years. We will know soon enough whether hybrids are the way of the future.
Sherman,
Maybe that’s the case with some people, but from the standpoint that diesel is better than anything that still uses a gas engine (battery assisted or not), I can hardly say that there is an American flag waving over the camp. Let’s face it; the boys from Detroit haven’t done us right by way of the oil burner. So what about diesel hybrids? Then everyone can be happy!